Yet by its very
directness and its superb ignoring of all obstacles, legal and
canonical, it was invested with a certain wild sanity.
In full armour, a white cloak simply embroidered in gold at the
edge and knotted at the shoulder, he rode to the Cathedral,
attended by his half-brother Pedro Affonso, and two of his
knights, Emigio Moniz and Sancho Nunes. There on the great
iron-studded doors he found, as he had been warned, the Roman
parchment pronouncing him accursed, its sonorous Latin periods
set forth in a fine round clerkly hand.
He swung down from his great horse and clanked up the Cathedral
steps, his attendants following. He had for witnesses no more
than a few loiterers, who had paused at sight of their prince.
The interdict had so far attracted no attention, for in the
twelfth century the art of letters was a mystery to which there
were few initiates.
Affonso Henriques tore the sheepskin from its nails, and crumpled
it in his hand; then he passed into the Cathedral, and thence
came out presently into the cloisters. Overhead a bell was
clanging by his orders, summoning the chapter.
To the Infante, waiting there in the sun-drenched close, came
presently the canons, austere, aloof, majestic in their unhurried
progress through the fretted cloisters, with flowing garments and
hands tucked into their wide sleeves before them.
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